The Top 13 Food Trends for 2013: An Introduction

At the start of every year, industry insiders, foodies and culinary journalists around the world put together a list of the hottest food trends to watch for in the upcoming year. 2013 was no different as everyone weighed in with their predictions of the hottest up-and-coming culinary crazes. Fortunately, a recent HuffPost Food article makes it easier to weed through all of those predictions by sharing the 13 food trends that overlapped many of those lists circulating around.

Here are those 13 Food Trends for 2013 as curated by the HuffPost Food editors:

Smoke

Vegetables as main courses

Fermentation

Artisanal Bread

Non-Alcoholic Beverages

Chef Collaborations

Barrel-Aged Hot Sauce

Winter Veggies, Served Fresh

Chicken

Gochujang

Cured Meat

Tea

Popcorn

Now, keep in mind that like all lists of this nature, these “trends” are not a sure thing. Unfortunately we can’t offer you a crystal ball to see which of the 13 above trends will truly take off in 2013 and more importantly, which of those trends will mean success for restaurants and budding chefs around the world. As the HuffPost Food article states:

Each person’s food preferences are extremely subjective, and influenced more by upbringing and geography than anything else. Plus, the kinds of food we eat change much more slowly than the kinds of movies we watch or clothing we wear, which can make it hard to ascribe any one year to any one food item… Still, there’s no doubting that certain foods get more or less popular in short spans of time, or that there’s some anthropological value in putting one’s ear to the ground to suss out food trends.

So while we’re not guaranteeing any of these items will truly pan out to be the widespread trends across the foodie world that they are predicted to be, we couldn’t agree more that there’s value in paying attention to what might be the up and coming next big thing. To that end, we will be delving a bit more deeply into each of these 13 food trends for 2013 over the next few weeks. We’ll explore the trend itself: where it comes from, why it’s considered a possible trend this year, where it’s already showing up, and give you some practical tips and ideas for adopting the trend in your own cooking, whether on a personal or professional level.

Until then, let’s take a quick look at the food trends for 2012 and see which ones made the popularity cut to stay relevant through the end of the year. For continuity sake, we’ll stick with the Huffington Post as the source for the predictions and final determinations.

As you can see, there is only one overlap, Casual Asian Food, between the predicted food trends and the actual food trends. However, that’s not to say that the predicted trends didn’t make a mark of their own; it just wasn’t as powerful as the food trends that actually played out.

It will be interesting to look back at the end of this year and see which of 13 Food Trends of 2013 make the cut come end of the year. Until then, we’ll keep you in-the-know with all the info you’ll need to embrace the predicted trends and to stay on top of each new trend as it emerges.